


what is a hug (that does not compute)

by Anonymous



Series: UN PL UG GE D [6]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Kidnapping, Love Confessions, Other, Rescue Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-28 16:21:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21139604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: News of their dramatic exit from Overwatch reaches every corner of Gibraltar within a matter of hours, and although no one will blame her openly for the loss of one of Overwatch’s greatest assets, she still feels their absence like a missing lung.





	what is a hug (that does not compute)

Maybe _this_time when she walked past the laboratory, things would be different. It wasn’t a conscious thought, it never was, but the unrealized prerogative kept Zarya coming back to the empty space long after she knew Lynx wouldn’t be coming home.

News of their dramatic exit from Overwatch had reached every corner of Gibraltar within a matter of hours, and although no one, save for a few snide comments from 76, would blame her openly for the loss of one of Overwatch’s greatest assets, she still felt their absence like a grim shawl around her shoulders. They’d taken nothing with when they’d left, just their passcard to get back into the facility, as though they’d gone for a quick walk instead of out of Zarya’s life forever. Despite that, all of their work was out of Overwatch’s reach. Records were hard-locked on every device from the communications array to their personal tablet, and even Winston hadn’t been able to crack open whatever Lynx Seventeen had been working on before they left. So: the hanger was left abandoned, and Zarya walked around it like its second ghost.

“Any new communications?” Zarya asked the empty room, where she knew Athena was listening.

“You have no new messages, Agent Zarya,” Athena confirmed.

Zarya sighed, sitting upon the closest bench. Of course there wasn’t. And if there were, she would be the _last_ person Lynx would want to speak to when she’d chased them away in the first place. Ever since they’d gone she thought about how _stupid_ she’d been, how pig-headed of a person she must be to ignore all the warning signs. Because when all was said and done, they’d come to Overwatch because of her.

_Now I think I know who you are, and I no longer believe I wish to discover more_. Lynx’s last words to her rattled around in her head, and she couldn’t hold back the bile when she realized Lynx no longer cared for her. She had taken for granted that they would always be their for her, that their friendship was a given when she’d hardly done anything to earn it. She hadn’t respected them as a person, not fully, and she realized that now. Lynx had been waiting for her to step up and she’d failed.

The shame that she’d disappointed them had only grown since they’d left. She _wanted_ to do it all again, she _wanted_to be the person they thought she could be. Someone who was deserving of them.

At that thought, her throat constricted. That wasn’t something you were supposed to think of a friend. Their absence had left a hole in her life that shouldn’t have been as gaping as it was, and with growing dread as she sat beneath a creaking and unfinished communications array, the loss of the missed chance tore into her like a ripped out IV.

Zarya shot up, but there was nothing to do. The realization was just as useless as her guilt, and it set the whole room in a different tinge.

“Shit,” she groaned to herself. A bubble of energy threatened to explode out of her, but she had no idea what to do with it. No, no this couldn’t be the end. She _had_ to try again, she needed another chance.

In a fit of desperation, she grabbed the nearest discarded tablet, knocking over a signed photograph of Tracer on the desk in her rush, and began tapping randomly on its interface. Distantly she reasoned that if she could contact them through their own profile, they wouldn’t dismiss her messages out of hand. But, as she began to slide haphazardly through the screens, a small-texted report appeared in front of her eyes.

“Athena,” she called, not taking her eyes off the tablet. “What is this? Were not Seventeen’s files locked down?”

“That is one of their documents from a personal initiative,” Athena replied instantly, as though she had calculated Zarya’s question before it even left her tongue. “It is not locked for you.”

“Not for me?” Zarya’s brow knit together, attention split between the AI and the words that glazed her eyes. “Why?”

“Lynx Seventeen created a back door for these files. In the event they were no longer able to access them, they wanted you to be able to see their work. The reasoning they gave was that this pertains to your common interest.”

“You didn’t tell Winston about this.” Zarya found her voice rising.

“The protocols they set were to withhold this information until it became relevant. In other words, I could only tell you when asked.”

But Zarya had forgotten Athena now. Because now she was reading, first for five minutes, then ten, then twenty as she absorbed every single file Lynx had been collecting before they disappeared, and her blood boiled until she was ready to tear off someone’s skin.

“Call a meeting,” she said as she clutched the small device in her hand. “This time, she went too far. This time, I’m not letting her get away.”

* * *

“You can’t be serious.”

“I’ve never known her to be anything _but_ serious,” Mei muttered over her coffee.

Zarya slammed the tablet down on the table, at which everyone jumped. The scant heads of Overwatch leadership looked around at each other with bleary eyes, few of them on a standardized sleep schedule with the organization stretched so thin. They suffered from jet lag, stress, and now Aleksandra Zaryanova as she demanded they drop everything and return to where it all began.

Began for her, that is. For them, it was asking to fly half a world away on conjecture and half-formed evidence.

“We must stop her,” Zarya said, pointing at the grainy photo on the tablet’s screen, the gentle half-heart of purple hair some how mocking her from beyond the glass. “She is a menace, a public threat. If Lynx Seventeen is still alive can you even imagine what someone like her could do to-”

Zarya suddenly found she couldn’t finish that thought.

There was no response, just a hush as the exhausted faces looked on. Someone cleared their throat.

“We _did_ ask Lynx not to get involved in hacking again,” Dr. Zeigler said gently from Zarya’s left.

She jerked her arm away. “Are you saying they deserve this?”

“We’re saying that even if you’re right about this,” Soldier said with a voice that clearly left out an _and I’m not even sure you are_, “then they knew the risks when they started digging up dirt on a nigh untouchable makes-her-enemies-never-exist techno-ghost, and we don’t exactly have the resources to from a fucking rescue mission.”

Zarya felt a ball of hot betrayal building in her throat. From Soldier she had expected it, but from the others… She looked from Zeigler to Winston, who wouldn’t meet her gaze even though he and Lynx were _friends_ for Christ’s sake. Finally she looked at Mei, eyes dark rimmed yet worried, lost in thought as the steam in her mug fogged her glasses.

No one would listen to her. No one would help. Her shoulders slouched.

“Please,” she said, a crack forming on the last syllable. “I know…I know I have not made myself popular. I know I have not repaid the trust shown me and I…chased them away.” Her voice wavered. “But do not do this for me. Do this for them. They have saved the life of every person in this room at least once and if there is even a _chance_ we could do the same for them, then we must try.”

She remembered a frightened city, a pajama’d vigilante in the midst of chaos.

“It is what heroes do.”

She met each of their eyes again. Mercy, Mei, Winston. One by one they looked at her, then turned their gaze upon Soldier 76.

His visor was expressionless, but she could swear she heard the grind of teeth beneath that mask, as though something she said had finally rattled something loose. He began, “none of us _want_ to leave them, but-”

“Jack,” Winston said softly. Soldier looked at him in surprise. “Overwatch is our family,” he continued. “This is what we do.”

For a second, Zarya thought that Soldier would turn, a dismissal despite everything. But, the silence hung heavy between the five ex-patriots, the only movement the occasional shimmer of Sombra’s face on the tablet screen. Then, finally, Soldier’s shoulders sagged.

“Well. I guess we do.” He rubbed his brow into a pinch.

“A mission into unknown territory with little to no chance of success,” Zeigler said thoughtfully.

Soldier cracked his neck. “Just like old times.”

* * *

“So,” Zarya said, as they boarded the transport craft. “Jack, hm?”

Soldier let out a long sigh.

* * *

The metal steps of Lumerico glittered into the sky, so much more threatening now that it towered above her instead of keeping malevolent watch over the city. Sombra _had_ to be here, she just had to. Lynx’s notes put the likelihood at 63%, but that _Had To_ was for Zarya, not reality, not when the chance Sombra had moved grew more likely the older the data got, or that if the lead was dead end there was no one else who knew Sombra like Lynx did. No one would ever get closer, not unless Zarya could find another random little girl who just so happened to know where the greatest hacker in the world was hiding.

“We’re coming,” she muttered. Then, to someone else entirely, “we’ll find you.”

Which was the last thing she said before Pharah landed on the outside of the building and set off the alarms.

Soldier swore. “What the hell is that?! This place has been abandoned for months.”

It had, ever since Lumerico had decided to cut its losses in Dorado and flee from its declining reputation. But, apparently, that was the case no longer.

“Maybe they hold a skeleton crew,” Zarya said, her eyes never leaving the giant metal monstrosity as it basked itself in red. “Or maybe, someone we know has turned these systems to her own benefit. Come, there is no use sneaking anymore.”

She barreled in, the flimsily locked doors bowing to a few blasts from her particle canon. Above her, she could hear Pharah repeatedly apologizing, to the effect of a muffled echo for her comms. The atrium inside was enormous, and although she couldn’t see any automated defensives, something was _definitely_ happening in the concave of its walls.

Winston and Soldier sprinted in behind her, with Mercy and Pharah sliding in through a side door just in time to see the spectacle unfold. The inverted lighting rod in the ceiling was beginning to spark.

“That can’t be good,” Winston noted.

The sparks gathered at its end, balling into a bright, florescent purple.

“Subtle,” Zarya said drily, before the lightning rod shot a bolt directly in the center of the assembled agents.

They flung themselves in all directions, the more limber members managing into a tuck and roll, and the ones with the power of rocket ship landing in a heap. “Scatter!” Soldier yelled as they got to their feet. Other arcs of lighting were beginning to form on the ceiling, and within the second, another one had struck the floor. Soon the entirety of Lumerico was alive with the storm, leaving Zarya to dodge as random bolts rained down upon her.

Her immediate instinct was to evacuate the building, but the first strike had separated her from the door leaving her only choice to clamber for cover.

“We’ll try to disable it!” Winston shouted over the non-stop **CRACK-CRACK-CRACK** of the bolts. With that, he leaped into the air, his jetpack giving him what he needed to reach the tower, Mercy and Pharah ascending after him.

“D’you ever think about how it’s bullshit we’re the only ones who can’t fly?” Soldier asked as he watched them go.

“It really is such bullshit,” Zarya agreed.

With that, the two grounded agents charged headfirst into the shooting gallery, dodging bolts with such rhythm it became a dance. Zarya absorbed the strike where she could, but it was so fast and frequent it may as well have been luck. They were getting so close to the opposite side of the facility, the open doors of their research facility just visible-

When a dash of electric purple struck Soldier 76.

The resulting explosion sent him flying, and Zarya’s mind froze, unable to make the flight-or-flight calculation for that crucial second as he rolled to a stop. But she herself was still a soldier. She had fought, and she had lost, and she did not leave her fellows behind. Without missing another beat she changed trajectory, grabbing the prone Soldier by his collar and began hauling him to safety. She nearly took a strike herself, but managed to drag her stunned companion into cover.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he said when she finally got him in an alcove halfway between the door and their destination.

He said that, but sparks were glinting off his gear and visor, and his voice sounded fried. He fumbled in his coat, hands uncharacteristically shaky, and tossed a biotic field to the ground. A sigh escaped him as the yellow pooled on the charred floor.

Burns Zarya hadn’t even realized she had began heal over as she crouched next to the Soldier. After a moment, he told her, “…I need a minute. I can’t run like this, not until they turn that thing off.”

Zarya faltered. A moment ago she had committed to never leaving a man behind…

“…Go,” he said. “Before she gets away.” The unlit visor stared at her, somehow determined behind that dim maroon. She set her teeth and nodded.

And then she was gone, back to pirouetting through the storm as she caught glimpses of the rest of the squad above. She paid them no mind. Now, there was no goal but the one in front of her, no others to calculate for, nothing but pure determination to drive her. She reached the opposite wall and did not stop, finding the first staircase and pounding up it.

Sombra was here. There was no doubt now. Zarya would find her and _make_ her reveal where she was holding Lynx, and if she try to _lie_and say they were dead or anything like that-

Well. Then Zarya would make her wish Overwatch let her kill prisoners.

She ascended, ignoring the burn in her lungs and the particle cannon’s weight on her shoulders. The electric storm was still audible through the walls, a constant companion as she charged upwards on marble steps. Whenever one floor would end she would blitz through the crash bar, swiveling her head and never slowing as she searched for any sign of Sombra, hoping against hope that she would busy packing her gear instead of already gone. Her frantic searching came to a crashing halt as she threw herself against the topmost fire door of the complex only to find it stuck.

Zarya wasted no thought. She pointed the business end of her canon against the door and incinerated it.

Her nerves and equipment still sung with the charge gathered on the ground floor, and with a quick activation of her personal shield, she blasted it outward into a crater of warped metal. She charged through the doorway into Sombra’s domain.

There was no doubt it was hers, the screens displaying her blinking logo and the inset LEDs replaced with neon purple. Furniture was strewn about, beanbag chairs and those circular kinds that were elevated above the ground on metal struts, and in it all-

“Hello Zaryanova.”

“_Lynx!?!?_” And in it all was Lynx Seventeen, sitting on a couch reading a newspaper. A _paper_ newspaper, the yellowed pages open before them as they looked up at her with complete stillness. A second couch back separated the two of them, but from what she could tell they looked unharmed, and for the most part at ease. She glanced side to side at the apparent hominess of the room. “You are…not kidnapped then?”

“Oh I am most assuredly kidnapped,” they said, flicking their ears back slightly. “Or I suppose, _was_ kidnapped until you opened that door a few seconds ago. Thank you for that.”

“Lynx, what is going on?” She felt a prickle on the back of her neck. “Never mind, we’ll talk later. Let us get out of here, Sombra could be back at any moment.”

You know what happens when you speak of the devil-

Zarya turned and shot her.

Sombra shorted out in a fizzle of purple, reappearing behind Zarya and saying, didn’t think it’d be that easy did you-

Zarya shot her again.

Teleporting and few inches above the refrigerator and landing on it with a _huff_, Sombra complained, I’m getting the worst case of déjà vu.

“Zaryanova,” Lynx cut in. They stood, folding the paper on an end table made of other newspapers. “I would suggest you hear her out. She has been waiting to talk to you for a very long time. I would know. She hasn’t shut up about it.”

Sombra crouched over the edge of the fridge and smirked. Zarya was weighing whether to shoot her a third time before checking Lynx in the corner of her eye before quickly shifting her attention back. “You…want to talk to _me_?” she asked of the smug mug staring down at her. “_Why_?”

Sombra hopped down, and padded toward Zarya despite the way the soldier tightened her grip on her gun. Not so much a _why_as a _what about_. But since you’re asking, I just thought chatting wouldn’t be fun unless you came to find me yourself.

“You…” Zarya narrowed her eyes. “You seized a person from their life and home just so you could **_chat_**?”

Wasn’t the only reason. Probably would’ve found a different way about it if Peter Rabbit here hadn’t gone snooping around in my garden. She casually indicated Lynx, who had now appeared at Zarya’s side. Their ears flicked downward as Sombra finished, thought they needed to be knocked down a peg.

Sombra began to circle around them and Zarya reflexively put herself between her friend and what her mind could only register as _predator_. Sombra’s expression was back in that of detached control, apparently over whatever annoyance she felt toward her two guests. Zarya glared.

Despite everything, Lynx’s shoulder pressed against hers felt warm, radiating comfort just from their being, and she couldn’t help but ask out of the corner off her mouth, “are you alright, Seventeen?”

“Yes unfortunately.” They sounded tired. “Though I almost wish there had been some torture involved. It would have been less boring.”

And somehow, that familiar tone sent a wave of relief through her. Enough that she felt she could turn and face the their apparently perpetual agitator. “Speak, Sombra. I will give you six minutes.”

So short! Sombra, jeered. Why six?

“Six minutes is the time a Bastion unit can reach full mobile artillery configuration. Any useful report can be given in that time. Five minutes, fifty.”

Sombra waved her hand. Fine, don’t need that long anyway. And I hardly need to talk anyway, not when _you’re_ the one who needs answers.

“Plainly, Sombra. If that is even something you can do.”

She grinned, the sly smile reaching all the way to her eyes. You know who runs the world, don’t you Aleksandra?

Every vertebra in Zarya’s spine straightened. “You…” Sombra knew. She knew about the war, the roots of it all. Zarya felt a wave of disgust well up inside her. Of course she knew. Of course. “I don’t.”

The grin was just about to split Sombra’s face. But you’d like to.

Zarya stared down, her own eyes dry and aching from the lack of sleep, and she found she didn’t know the answer to that.

She may have kept staring for the remaining four minutes and thirty seconds if an artificial throat-clear hadn’t been made behind her. “Would anyone care to fill _me_ in on what I can only assume is a world ending secret?” Lynx asked.

“I…” Zarya looked to Sombra, but the hacker didn’t look like she was about to volunteer any explanation. “When I was back at the front I…discovered something.” She felt her throat closing. It wouldn’t do to say what that discovery had cost, not if she wanted to hold herself through it all. “I found that…we are being played. There is something orchestrating this war.”

She looked between Lynx and Sombra, the former with their ears straight back and the latter egging her on. She took a steadying breath.

“And not just this war, _all_ wars. Someone or…_something_ is directing major events on this planet to wherever it wants them to go.” Lynx looked about to speak, but she cut them off. “I have no idea who, or what their goal is, but if you had seen what I had seen you would say the same.”

They were quiet for a moment, and for a moment, she regretted that she hadn’t told them the first time she’d wandered into their apartment. But, then she remembered the spiral she’d taken those first few weeks after her discovery, the orders from every branch for her to keep quiet on what she had found…and again she was glad she had spared them that for at least some time.

And what are you gunna do about it?

Zarya looked back to Sombra. The words were stuck in her throat, the pure strangeness of this making it difficult to ask her question. “I don’t know,” she admitted. Then, mockingly, she added, “I came to you for answers didn’t I?”

There was now a twinkle in Sombra’s eye. But instead of saying anything, she turned on her heel, scooped something off a desk, and tossed it at Lynx. The omnic, still reeling, barely caught it in time, and fumbled it for a few seconds before gripping it tightly in their left hand.

“And what is this?” they asked, holding it up for examination.

That, Sombra said, is answers. What I’ve gathered on them, or at least what I’m willing to share. With a wink, she added, I’m sure you can parse it out, Seventeen. As for the pair of you, I think you know what to do with that.

“What?” Zarya said, blinking at the small teal and pink USB in Lynx’s hands. “Just…come forward with this?”

Sombra laughed. There was a rumble in the building. You guys will figure it out.

Suddenly, the rumbled became an earsplitting shriek, the groaning tear of something immense and metal coming loose.

Sombra paced away. Over her shoulder, she tossed a, sounds like your friends have finally got the security system down. I’d skedaddle if I were you. This place isn’t structured to last very long without it. And then, with a gentle push she opened a thirtieth story window, and jumped.

For a moment, Zarya considered running after her. She stared out the place where she had made her escape, shutters banging slightly as though they’d merely been rustled by a light breeze. Furious that she had let Sombra get away _again_, she almost didn’t hear the sound of a giant step sliding loose of Lumerico.

It wasn’t until something gently touched her hand that she looked down.

“Zaryanova,” Lynx said, tugging her away. “We need to go.”

She caught the glow of their peace lights in her eyes, and for a moment was still stunned to inaction. But then they tugged, and she followed, and the two of them were fleeing the crumbling building.

* * *

Zarya bent over her knees, missing as Lumerico gave one final groan and folded like a house of cards. God. If Overwatch were somehow implicated in this, Soldier was going to kill her.

She pushed herself to her feet and wiped a sheet of sweat off her brow. She’d seen the others safely exit from the other side of the building, but she hadn’t felt the need to radio them just yet. Instead, she looked sideways at Lynx, who was bobbling the USB back and forth in thought.

“Thank you for coming to rescue me,” they said, snapping it up suddenly in one hand. “Though you did take your sweet time.”

Her mouth hung open. In all the scenarios she had imagined, in the fantasies she played where she got to take it all back, some part of her genuinely believed she would never get the chance. “We thought you had left,” she blurted.

Their ears perked up in surprise.

“I thought you had left me and I…I would have deserved it.” She moved, jerkily, so she could stand in front of them and see the night lights of Dorado frame their outline. “I was awful to you. I did not respect you. I am…” English failed her, so she did likewise. “_I am impossibly sorry. I liked that you found me worthwhile and I took it for granted that you always would. I had secrets and they interested you and so I just…treated you like you were a commodity instead of my greatest friend. I hope you can forgive me. And maybe…come home?_”

She hadn’t meant to spill that last part. Lynx hadn’t yet granted their forgiveness and already she was asking things of them.

They tilted their head. “_That is an apology_,” they responded, too, in Russian. “_And I’ll count the whole rescue as the good deed. What about a promise to do better in the future?_”

Zarya didn’t think she’d nodded this vigorously since she was ten years old. “_I promise. I will never make that mistake again._”

“_Then I forgive you, and your stupid mouth_.” They stepped closer to her. “_There_. _Was that really so hard? I swear Zarya, you are as stubborn as the stone you’re made from._”

She felt as though the massive weight that had been crushing her since Lynx’s disappearance was suddenly gone, like barbell pressing down on her chest until her spotter came to her rescue. She wanted to say so, but found she couldn’t find the words again. Instead, she blinked, realizing how close they were in the midst of the city’s lights. Lynx lightly took her hand once again.

“_You know_,” they said idly, as though it were the most normal thing in the world, “_you’re being uncharacteristically hard on yourself. Your secrets weren’t the _**_only_**_ thing I found interesting about you._”

Suddenly her face felt very warm. “You…I…” she blustered.

“Oh don’t be so surprised Zaryanova!” They waved their free hand. “We’re well past such emotional vulnerabilities. I have seen you naked after all.”

On that, she full on sputtered, and gave them a shove. They just held on, and pulled her back in with a chuckle. They were laughing at her! After all this! But before the _how dare you_ could rise out, they pressed their forehead against hers, and the agitation went out of her. Despite it all, despite Sombra and the secrets and the lies, this felt right, and let out a breath as she pressed back.

It might have been perfect. Then, over the comms, Soldier said, “guess we’ll come back in a few minutes. Love birds need some privacy.”

Zarya groaned and ignored Lynx’s suppressed giggle. “I hate this fucking team.”

**Author's Note:**

> yaaay. we did iittt. *blows luigi themed party favor*


End file.
